Having It All Page 2
While moments like that were heartbreaking and difficult, Smith never questioned her decision to work. “I want to give my kids the life that I had growing up,” she states. “It was simple to do back then because all you needed was one parent working. But I got an education and I had privileges; I got to go on fun vacations with my family. I loved that. In order to do that, you need two working parents now. Doing films and Broadway is all well and fine, but…it didn’t work. Financially, it’s not as successful as this. If I was doing a sitcom, which I was doing in Los Angeles (starring opposite Gene Wilder in Something Wilder, in 1994), I’m not with them. And I wanted my children raised where they were raised because it’s a wonderful country place with simple, wonderful, pure values, morals and ethics. I believe in that. To come back and do a soap was the only thing I could do, but these weren’t normal hours. That’s all I could explain to her.”
Did the kids get that? “I don’t know,” Smith answers, then directs the question to Courtney. “Did you get that?” “Yeah,” Courtney says quietly. “It took awhile.”
“Where we live, most of the mothers don’t work,” Smith adds. “And she didn’t understand: ‘Why can’t you stay home like the other mothers?’ ‘Well, the problem is that I’m not like the other mothers. Your mother is a little weird. She’s an actress. She has to work. She loves to work.’ But this was the best of both worlds for me.”
It all worked out in the end. Mother and daughter have a close bond, and their love and respect for each other is evident. In fact, Courtney is at the studio because she, her mom and one of Courtney’s friends are having a sleepover in Manhattan (no, not at the studio!). “Courtney and I get into entirely too much trouble together; we have too good a time. That’s why I had children: to enjoy them and to grow with them and to explore them. That’s the beauty of it, that’s the joy of it.”
The Smith women are spending some extra time together before Courtney and her brother head off to boarding school. With both kids away from home, does Smith still need a job close to home? “I have a contract, and I honor my contracts. I will be here until the duration of the contract and then, who knows? Maybe beyond. I do love the medium. [But also], now that they’re in school, I can’t go fleeing out to California. My daughter’s been away at school for two years, and I spent a great deal of time going up to see her. [Once] she called and said, ‘I need to see you,’ and I raced up there, and we took a weekend and had a wonderful time in Boston. I can’t do that from California. I turned down a series recently because it was shot in Vancouver. They don’t have enough direct flights for me.”
Smith does admit that she would like to “get back on the boards.” Besides that her plans include, “To breathe, live. After Sept. 11 your goals change a bit. I’m happy. I like the family I’m in here with, my fellow actors. We laugh ourselves silly and have a good time. I have a great attachment to the show. It’s the longest gig I’ve ever had. I’d like to see it be successful and want to nurture that.”
So Smith has it all? “No one ever has it all,” she stresses. “Not all at the same time. I can have all of it, but it’s some of it some of the time, and then some of it the other part of the time. I try to work it all into rotating priorities, but the biggest priority is my children. Somewhere along the line something is going to get shortchanged. You’re not going to get sleep, you’re not going to get private time, you’re not going to get personal time, you’re not going to get your marital time, you’re not going to get your kid time, you’re not going to get your professional time. You do what you can as best you can.”
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